Published 4:00 am, Thursday, December 22, 2005

Photo: Deanne Fitzmaurice

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Oakland International Airport displayed items which will now be allowed on board an aircraft. Items include scissors with a cutting edge of 4 inches or less and tools such as screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers smaller that seven inches.
Event in Oakland on 12/21/05.
Deanne Fitzmaurice / The Chronicle less

travel22_099_df.JPG
Oakland International Airport displayed items which will now be allowed on board an aircraft. Items include scissors with a cutting edge of 4 inches or less and tools such as screwdrivers, ... more

The hordes of holiday travelers converging on Bay Area airports this week can bring their small scissors through security checkpoints beginning today, but some travelers are likely to be pulled aside in random checks aimed at keeping the nation's airports safe.

On what is expected to be one of the busiest days of the season, the Transportation Security Administration has thrown in the changes in what it says should speed the process of getting to boarding areas.

Under new rules, travelers will be able to pass through security checkpoints without having to surrender scissors smaller than 4 inches or tools smaller than 7 inches. But more travelers will also be pulled aside for secondary searches in which they or their luggage may be more closely examined, security officials said Wednesday.

"We're going to implement an element of random secondary inspections at the checkpoint," said Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the security administration. "But because it's random, we're not going to offer any details."

The agency has tested the random checks at three airports across the nation, including John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Melendez said, "and we did not see any additional delays. In fact, we saw it speed some things up."

Nonetheless, it's a busy time at Bay Area airports. At San Francisco International Airport, the region's largest and busiest, about 1.7 million travelers are expected to pass through the terminals in the period that began Friday and ends Jan. 3.

Oakland International Airport expects to host 550,000 passengers during roughly the same period and Mineta San Jose International Airport anticipates seeing as many as 2,000 to 3,000 more passengers on its busiest travel days, which include Friday and Monday.

Travelers at all three airports are advised to arrive 90 minutes before departure for domestic flights, and two hours at San Francisco and San Jose or three hours at Oakland for international flights. Airline officials also urge travelers to call their airlines to check for delays before beginning the journey to the airport.

At SFO on Wednesday, lines at many airline check-in counters were long but security checkpoint queues were flowing fairly quickly, according to spokesman Mike McCarron. Travelers were waiting an average of just 7 1/2 minutes to get to the security checkpoint, he said. And most flights were arriving and departing on time despite rainy weather.

"It was great," said Barbara Peterson of Athens, Ga., of her trouble-free flight from Atlanta to spend Christmas with her children and grandchildren in the Bay Area. "It was a beautiful day in Atlanta, and there were no delays at all."

Melendez said security inspectors will do their best to keep passengers flowing through checkpoints at airports across the nation. The security agency has limited vacations and leaves, he said, and is calling people in on overtime when necessary. But he advised travelers to prepare by examining their bags before leaving to make sure they don't contain any forbidden items, perhaps something left inside from an earlier trip.

"If Thanksgiving was any indication -- it's much busier than Christmas, and we had no real problems -- things will be fine," Melendez said.

At SFO, meanwhile, travelers passing through the A gates at the International Terminal can get a glimpse of state-of-the-art equipment that is being tested and is designed to speed up and strengthen security while eliminating the need for passengers to remove jackets or shoes and turn on their laptop computers.

"We want to get the passenger, from the time they enter the checkpoint, to the time they pick up their (carry-on) luggage, through in 20 seconds," said Dave Weber, general manager for GE Security's homeland protection division, based in Newark.

In cooperation with SFO, and under the observation of the Transportation Security Administration, GE Security has set up what it calls the checkpoint of the future next to the usual security checkpoints. For now, the checkpoint isn't screening anyone.

GE Security hopes to perfect the equipment at SFO, then get it approved by the security administration.

This is how it would work:

At check-in, passengers place an index finger on a device that checks for explosives residues. At the checkpoint as passengers stand in the center of a screening device facing a curved glass wall, radio waves scan them and can detect weapons or explosives in about 1 1/2 seconds, company officials said.

Next will come a scanner that inspects shoes for explosives as passengers stand for about five seconds. The system could also compile a profile of each passenger based on their identity and the results of the tests.

Passengers found the promise of the high-tech checkpoint appealing, too.

"That would be a big improvement," said Stanford University law student John Eden on Wednesday as he arrived at SFO from Chicago.

What's OK in luggage

Permitted

-- Scissors with cutting edges shorter than 4 inches

-- Tools such as screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers shorter than 7 inches

Prohibited

-- Scissors with cutting edges longer than 4 inches

-- Tools such as crowbars, drills, saws and hammers

-- Knives of any size

-- Box cutters and razor blades

-- Ice picks

Source: Transportation Security Administration

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